Editor and journos quit FreeMalaysiaToday
MON 2014-JUN-2 @ MYT 14:51:02 PM
MEDIA GRAPEVINE
Online newspaper Free Malaysia Today is losing its editors and up to 15 journalists as a result of internal management problems and a pending shake-up in the way the site is run and its future editorial direction.
Word is that the site is to be more Barisan Nasional-friendly, in a departure from its current position. However this could not be confirmed.
Free Malaysia Today was set up four years ago, more or less a sister site to Raja Petra Kamaruddin’s Malaysia Today, and is widely believed to have been under the financial patronage of businessman John Soh Chee Wen, once an ally of Anwar Ibrahim.
The site had a shaky start until Soh’s right-hand man Nelson Fernandez, a former New Straits Times journalist turned ad man and businessman, brought in MalaysiaKini’s news editor K Kabilan as editor and his team of experienced former NST and Star journalists.
Kabilan in Mkini days
Kabilan left at the end of last week after building up the site over the past four years. He was not available for comment; it is not known as yet where he would be headed.
Three other editorial executives — the chief sub-editor, regional editor and news editor — are also believed to be handing in their resignations shortly.
Up to a dozen more journalists, most of them reporters, are expected to follow suit — possibly leaving FMT a mere shell.
It is believed they will seek positions at other online news sites such as Malaysian Insider,FZ.com, the Rakyat Post or the Malay Mail.(Rakyat Post’s managing editor Nelson Fernandez [Ridhuan Abdullah] is a younger namesake to FMT’s chief but no relation.)
It was not immediately known what prompted their leaving. For several months there had been speculation about the site’s financial situation and its future direction and friction between company and editorial management.
It is believed that FMT’s chief executive Nelson Fernandez will be having discussions in the next few days on the fate of the site: to decide whether the site will continue, in what form, and how it will be run.
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